deedles: Allow me to make a very different suggestion. As in your sample photo of a "traditional powder room design," hang a picture above the toilet; it will break up the space to that 9' ceiling. Then, in the ceiling receptacle that your husband already has cut out, install a fixture that looks something like the one in the link below (the color/finish is your choice, of course). Make sure that the fixture takes a standard medium base par20 light bulb -- many such fixtures require that you use only very expensive, hard to get, specialty light bulbs that also burn watts like there's no tomorrow. Fit the fixture with a 40-watt equivalent indoor LED flood light bulb similar to the Lowe's house brand Utilitech, Lowe's item # 338804, Model # LPAR20DM/LED (which consumes less than 8 watts in operation) and aim the flood at the picture on the back wall above the toilet. The reflected light will diffuse, giving a soft (not harsh) glow, and the angle of the primary light for the person sitting on the toilet will be perfect over-the shoulder for reading. Here is a link that might be useful: Suggestion; feel free to vary

Ha it is starting to resemble a mini waiting room! I toyed with the idea of adding a little magazine basket or a small reading table but not sure if that's too much. The previous owner is the one who built the house, and later divided it into apartments. He (large property developer in the area) had put in the false floor and told us it was stable and we could put furniture there - we felt it might not be strong enough, as it felt a bit weak when we walked on it. We pulled up a section of the floor to examine the structure, and the engineer who evaluated it told us we need further reinforcements, but it's just adding in additional beams between the existing ones, something a carpenter could help with. The engineer provided exact plans to give to the carpenter, of the size of supports needed, the necessary spacing between supports, and the method to attach them. To be clear there is a false ceiling in the entry hall for the building, then above the false ceiling, a plexiglass window that the balcony looked onto originally, and then on top of that, the false floor in our apartment. We won't at any time actually break through into the common entry hall. We're doing a full renovation of the apartment, adding a mezzanine library in the double height living room and redoing the attic space (the attic is private to our apartment but we will need approval from the other owners for skylight/velux windows). For the attic it's similar to the false floor in the entry, we must add additional reinforcements in between existing floor supports per the engineers recommendation. We are also converting the long and narrow walk-in closet from the bedroom into the front hall closet, with one end of it becoming the stairwell for attic access - which is perfect because there is a nice tall window in that section that will brighten up the hallway now instead of being in the closet. We are working with a qualified architect on this, still only at planning stage. We are not making any changes to load-bearing walls and very minimal impact on party wall. The front entry area is the easiest fix, just reinforcing the floor and removing the balcony guard, so we're trying to move forward where we can easily make some progress.

groveraxle, I was more concerned personally about actual size of the sideboard in terms of how large it is on its own, and then we are moving it up into an alcove... Maybe I'm making myself paranoid about this, but the piece is 54"W x 17¾"D x 29½"H. Good point about the distance between the screen and console. We can always move the TV screen up as it's on an arm. Here is a pic of the 4 panel sideboard. This one is much wider than the 3 panel we photoshopped in, however the height is the same - 29 1/2".

Could you add some glass shelves to kind of bring them down to a manageable size? I could see displaying some neat stuff on them. I could also see a cool mural (wallpaper or a fresco by a talented artist ) inside each of the arches. That way, it would fit perfectly. Kind of like the mural / fresco idea. It would go well with your house I think. Can't wait to see what you do!